CHI06CA066 · Cessna 120
Cessna 120 · Accident during takeoff
From Sky Harbor Seaplane Base (9Y5) to Hibbing, MN
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI06CA066
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Cessna 120
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 120
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N76203
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sky Harbor Seaplane Base (9Y5), Ely, MNTo Hibbing, MN
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Takeoff · roll/run
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Miscellaneous/other
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Landing gear, ski assembly › Failure, partial
- Landing gear, ski assembly › Failure, total
- Landing gear, ski assembly › Overload
- Pilot in command › Unsuitable terrain or takeoff/landing/taxi area, used
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The ski equipped airplane nosed over while landing on a frozen lake. The pilot reported that when he departed another seaplane base, the surface was very rough due to frozen slush created by snow mobiles. He reported that when he touched down on the frozen lake, he heard a "loud grinding" noise and the airplane slowed down rapidly. The pilot stated that the grinding noise stopped then started again only much louder. He reported that the nose of the airplane dropped and the propeller contacted the ice. The pilot reported that the airplane then dropped to the right and flipped over onto its back. The pilot reported that the ground track from the left ski was "rounded" at initial touchdown followed by a space then a much narrower and deeper track. He reported that the four quarter-inch bolts sheared off between the axle and the gear leg on the left ski.
Probable cause
The pilot used a rough frozen lake for takeoff which resulted in the overload failure of the landing ski. A factor was the rough frozen lake.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI06CA066
- Event ID
- 20060126X00126
- Case number
- CHI06CA066
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 3e4a5e51bd22a0cd99597ab8604943444d242c31e616c862f86cbb192ed1472b; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:09:37.143Z.